Lesbian Code of Honour
by quieten
Summary: The days that change your life are the ones you never see coming. AU: high school Callie and Arizona.
1. Chapter 1

It's a thing you don't talk about admit to acknowledge _even in your own mind, _that's all I know, all I've been taught about it in hushed whispers as they pass, girls with boyish hair, boys with girlish faces, rainbows plastered across their bodies and smiles plastered across their faces, _gay. _And it's been confusing me for a while, how a word that used to mean _happy _is the one that makes my parents flip, old-school Catholic values and reading the riot act because this is An Abomination, even though I've read the Bible back to front, and I don't think Jesus would care that I like girls. But my parents, they're a whole other story.

It's a new day new school year and there's a new girl in my school, and she's all anybody's talking about. I don't understand why until she breezes into my second period history class, bright blue eyes and flicky blonde hair, throwing smiles at everyone and sliding into her seat like she's always been there. It takes me by surprise, how aggressively _bubbly _she is – not that she's aggressive, but the bubbles hit you from miles away – and when she turns to me and holds her hand out with a grin – "I'm Arizona," – I just stare dumbly at her hand. That's when I notice the rainbow beads around her wrist. I'm trying to process everything that just hit me when the teacher walks in and demands silence. She withdraws her hand and turns to face the front, probably coming to all the wrong conclusions about my lack of a response, and my mind is racing and so is my pulse, for reasons I've been trying for years to ignore.

The bell rings for the end of the period, and she pulls out her schedule, narrowing her eyes slightly in concentration. "Do you have volleyball next?" I jump, almost drop my notebook. I nod. She grins. "Me too. Don't worry, I won't peek in the changing rooms," she winks. "Lesbian code of honour."


	2. Chapter 2

I'm walking home from school the next week when I hear a screech of brakes and almost jump out of my skin. All of a sudden there's a Range Rover on the curb just in front of me, a boy and a girl having an argument. I swallow, pretend I haven't noticed and carry on walking, staring at the pavement.

"I _did _give you warning, I told you _back there _that I needed you to stop – hey, Callie, wait!" I wonder whether I'm hearing things, but when I look up, Arizona is grinning at me through the car window. "Get in, we can give you a lift."

I bite my lip. "I can walk, it's okay." At her insistent look and raised eyebrows, I sigh. "We don't really know each other…"

At first she doesn't understand that it's an awkwardness thing rather than a stranger danger issue. "Are you kidding? We have three classes together!"

The other seat is occupied by a boy who looks just like her. He's trying not to laugh.

"Yes, but, I… You don't know me. And I know things. About you. " I do; people talk. I know that Arizona Robbins is an army brat, that she made out with the captain of the cheerleading squad at the bowling alley on Saturday, that she hangs out with the smokers at lunch.

She rolls her eyes. "I know things about you, too. You're Callie Torres, right? Is it short for something? You're right-handed, you speak Spanish – or you can swear in it, at least… And you don't like volleyball."

I'm so taken aback that I walk to the car and open the door, defeated. "Calliope," I mumble, and she turns in her seat to give me a dazzling smile. "Drive, Tim!" she orders the boy, punching him lightly on the arm.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey! Thanks everyone for all the follows and reviews etc :) I've been getting a lot of reviews requesting longer chapters; the way I'm writing this story is as a series of connected oneshots, so each chapter will probably only be 300-500 words long. I know that's probably frustrating to read, but that's the way the first couple of chapters came to me and I don't want to force something else. I'm not sure where the storyline is gonna go - I guess we'll find out together! ;)

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We're sitting on the back steps of the cafeteria and she's rolling, deft fingers sliding tobacco into place, placing the filter, rolling the paper around, and I'm just watching, mesmerised. I tear my gaze away and find myself examining the look of concentration on her face, and I know I'm gone.

She finishes, fishes for a lighter in her pocket. Inhales, lights, exhales. She closes her eyes briefly, looks at me and smiles lazily. "Want one?" There's a hint of a dare in those blue eyes.

I shake my head, wary. "I'm good."

"You're _too _good," she frowns, taking another drag.

I almost laugh, because I always hear how good I am, always – I'm a "good girl," but people only ever say that to put pressure on you, to remind you that if you fail, if you slip up, disappoint them in any way, your whole identity is gone.

"No, seriously," she turns slightly, angled towards me so that our knees almost touch, pale eyebrows furrowed a little. "Don't you ever get tired of being that perfect girl?"

She doesn't get it. And why would she, when she's so loud and out and proud, blonde hair blue eyes and somehow still an angel in spite of the fact that she's gay and a smoker ("a stress smoker," she claims, although she's anything but stressed at the moment) and not one to shrink from a fight, either. She's never had that sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach when she got a B, because she's Arizona Robbins, and everyone loves her.

"It's not my choice," I say, shaking my head and looking out across the playing fields.

"Hey," I can hear the frown in her voice as she reaches out, turns my head back to face her. Her fingers are light on my jawbone. "You always have a choice, Callie." And she sounds so earnest that for a moment, I almost believe her.


	4. Chapter 4

It's a Monday morning and there's that familiar knot of tension in my stomach, because, well, Monday leads to Tuesday which leads to Wednesday and that's a whole lot of days to get through, a whole lot of _time _and the goddamned carousel never stops spinning. Last night my sister yelled my name from her room ten minutes before a hot date, frantic. I helped her zip up her dress – 'dress' is an overstatement, to be honest; it barely covered anything – and do her make-up, flicky eyeliner and red lipstick. She'd cracked a joke on her way out the door and winked as I doubled up laughing. My mom had come out of the lounge to see what was happening, frowned when she saw me there. _"Shouldn't you be doing your homework, Calliope?"_

I take huge gulps of water, trying to force the bitter pill past the lump in my throat. Days weeks months of medication and they still haven't made it any easier to breathe, to stand strong under the weight of expectation. I guess miracles take a while. But by this point I'm running late, and I'm so flustered that I don't even notice her standing by the front gates til I've locked the front door behind me and run up the path. She's smiling, of course. I raise my eyebrows at her.

"I was just passing," she shrugs, reaching into the pocket of her denim shorts and taking out a pack of cigarettes. I shake my head at the blatant lie and she falls into step beside me, her scuffed black DMs hitting the pavement with more force than you'd think such a tiny girl could generate.

She pushes me in the side, offers me the packet. "Want one?" She's smirking, challenging me with an arched eyebrow. I push her back, take one. She's speechless, and that makes me laugh out loud.

I lean in to the lighter in her hands. "I'm tired of being a good girl," I say, my eyes on hers. I inhale and close my eyes briefly. Damn, freedom tastes good. When I open them, she's biting her lip.

I pull back, push her again, lightly. "We're late for school," I remind her, and she just stares at me. I roll my eyes. "You're not the only one who can smoke a cigarette, Robbins."


	5. Chapter 5

She's eyeing me over the top of her glasses, one perfect eyebrow raised in query. "Callie…"

I groan internally. Sentences that start with my name never seem to end well. "Yeah?"

"Are you speaking the vagina monologues now?"

I almost swallow my tongue. "What?!" My heartbeat quickens at her words, because there's only one thing she can be referring to.

Addison sets down the magazine she'd been flicking through and leans her elbows on the table. "Because that's cool, really. I promise. I won't tell a soul if you don't want me to. Just… _are_ you?"

She's my best friend, has been for over a decade, and I guess it's weird that we're both well into our high school years and yet this topic has never come up. Except it's not. Weird, I mean – it's not weird, because it's a topic of conversation I've actively avoided in every interaction I've ever had with anyone.

I look at her. I could do it, I could say yes now, tell someone the truth for once. She gets to her feet and shuts her bedroom door before coming to sit beside me on the couch. "Callie…" and her voice is softer now, less probing, "I love you, you know that. And nothing you say will change that." She's so genuine, so earnest. We became friends when she kicked a boy's ass for stealing my armbands at swim camp, and I guess she's never stopped sticking up for me since.

I swallow. Nobody's ever asked me directly, and somehow avoiding the issue has always felt less of a lie than an outright denial would. She's Addison, after all. What's she going to do? She's my best friend. And then I remember the stories of bullied teens all over the world, kids who told one person who told another who told another til the whole world knew they'd just been pretending to be normal. It's too much, too soon, and now my heart is pounding so fast I think she can probably hear it, too.

"I have to go," I whisper, standing so suddenly I even make myself jump.

She gets to her feet. "Callie, wait, I –"

But I'm through the door and down the stairs and out of her house before she has time to finish the sentence, before she has time to make this right.


	6. Chapter 6

I don't know what made me do it, really, just that I am so tired, so so _tired _of being trapped in my own skin; trapped in the hopes and expectations that everyone has of me. Do you ever just want to stop, be someone else, get out of your own head skin life? So I kissed her.

It was just a mistake, right?

Except it wasn't, because mistakes don't feel like the last piece of the jigsaw has slotted into place, like there are angels singing and violins singing in your veins or whatever, all that clichéd crap, but now I get why it's a cliché because _damn._

I ran away from Addison's and I went to the park, because nothing clears my head like being surrounded by empty space. And it would've been fine if she hadn't been there, if she hadn't jumped out of a goddamn tree like some kind of freaking ninja in denim shorts and a backwards baseball cap. She fell into step beside me like nothing about that scenario was weird, threw a "hey, Torres, how's it going?" my way and I just stopped dead, stared at her incredulously like _did that just happen? _and she just raised an immaculate eyebrow at me.

And I don't know what happened after that – except I do, I know every tiny thing that happened; I stared a little too long and she looked concerned and said "Callie, are you okay?" and then I realised just how much I wanted to kiss her, so I did, right there out in public, like I'm not the daughter of a goddamn respected family, like I have nothing better to do with my carefully-constructed façade than tear it to shreds.

I kissed her, and she kissed me back, and then her lips curved into a smile and she said "Jesus, Torres, I thought you'd never admit it."

And now I'm in trouble.


	7. Chapter 7

Hi! To everyone who followed and faved this story: I am so sorry for the hiatus. Life happened, stuff got in the way and I just rediscovered this fic. I love this story and I will be posting more regular updates again :)

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I'm running, I was born running, and you wouldn't know it to look at me maybe because the thing I'm running from is _me, _and you can't outrun yourself, you can't outrun your shadow - it keeps pace with you, always a half-step behind like you never went anywhere.

I kissed the girl and that's okay, right? That's okay. That's okay unless you're a girl too, unless your parents think same-sex attraction is a fast-track path to hell, unless the price for your continued existence on this earth is perfection and you are already so so far from perfect that you probably just wrote your own invite to dinner with the devil.

Arizona is staring at me with those eyes, honesty and sincerity and _feeling _in her gaze, and I look at the ground, the trees, anything but her because shit, she's the only thing I want to be looking at, and I can't. She's five foot five of dynamite fearlessness and I am so scared.

"It's okay, Callie," she says, dropping all of her bravado in two seconds flat, trying to catch my eye. "It's okay."

I shake my head, force myself to meet her gaze. "It's not okay," I say, and I leave her standing there.

But she's Arizona Robbins, and I should know better than to think I can walk away from her. I'm five paces away when she falls into step beside me, her hands in her pockets, and I know without even looking that her eyebrows are furrowed and her lips are pursed in the way that happens when she's piecing things together.

"I shouldn't have done that," I say. My stomach is tying itself in knots, my heart has never beat so fast and I'm worried it might just give out.

She narrows her eyes. "It's your parents, right?" She doesn't even wait for an answer. "You're scared in case they find out. They're on the church board, which means they're religious, which means they don't like the idea of gay, which means you're scared. Right?"

I could deny it, but what's the point. I can hardly pretend to be heterosexual of the century having just jumped her in the middle of the park. "Right."

"Callie," she says, "you're more than your parents' expectations of you. You're more than anyone's expectations of you. What's the point of living if you're always living someone else's life?"

I guess she has a point.


End file.
